[George Washington] had an elder half-brother and mentor called Lawrence Washington who had, in fact, been a British soldier. Specifically, he was a
marine in the Royal Navy. As a recruit from the British dominions in North America, he served under Admiral Edward Vernon in the Caribbean, and was
part of the force that seized a strategically important base called Guantánamo, which has some minor position in modern history.

Lawrence Washington was very attached to admiral Vernon. So loyal was he that when he went home to the family estate, which had been called Little
Hunting Creek Plantation, he decided to rename it Mount Vernon. So Washington's house was named after a British admiral.

Admiral Vernon's naming exploits didn't end there, though. In 1739 Vernon led the British assault on Porto Bello in what is now Panama. He had only six
ships, but with lots of derring-do and British pluck, et cetera, he won a startling victory. In fact, so startling was the victory that a patriotic
English farmer heard the news, dashed off to the countryside west of London, and built Portobello Farm in honour of the victory's startlingness.
Green's Lane, which was nearby, soon became known as Portobello Lane and then Portobello Road. And that's why the London market, now one of the largest
antiques markets in the world, is called Portobello Market.

But Admiral Vernon's naming exploits didn't end there, either. When the seas were stormy he used to wear a thick coat made out of coarse material
called grogram (from the Frenchgros graine). So his men nicknamed him Old Grog.

British sailors used to have a daily allowance of rum. In 1740, flushed from victory at Porto Bello and perhaps under the pernicious influence of
Lawrence Washington, Vernon ordered that the rum be watered down. The resulting mixture, which eventually became standard for the whole navy, was also
named after Vernon. It was called grog.

If you drank too much grog you became drunk or groggy, and the meaning has slowly shifted from there to the wages of gin: a hangover.

The rest of
The Etymologicon
traces curious linguistic origin stories connecting concepts as seemingly unrelated as sex and bread, Medieval monks and cappuccino, sausage poison and
botox, and much more.